


I Never Had a Single Song

by seashadows



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Loneliness, M/M, Singing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-18 15:46:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5933875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seashadows/pseuds/seashadows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Dwarves all have beautiful, rich singing voices, and they are not hesitant to use them, least of all to shower affection on each other. </p><p>That first night, Bilbo discovers, when every voice rose in deep harmony to sing of the reclamation of their home, was only the beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Never Had a Single Song

The Dwarves all have beautiful, rich singing voices, and they are not hesitant to use them, least of all to shower affection on each other. 

That first night, Bilbo discovers, when every voice rose in deep harmony to sing of the reclamation of their home, was only the beginning. When their Company gathers around a roaring campfire at night, more often than not, someone will bring up an idea or the name of someone among them who needs comfort. The afflicted Dwarf will receive slaps on the back and laughter and gruff endearments in their Dwarvish language, and then the singing will begin. 

“Oi, Dori!” Nori shouts one night when he’s sat down on a rotting log that he dragged over on the grounds that a cold, wet arse was preferable to a sore one. “Dwalin’s got a splinter in his foot, the great bugger. Took his shoes off for a lark. You remember that song about tired feet?” 

“Certainly, certainly.” Dori carefully sets down his bowl. “But I could use some help. Will everyone join me? ‘Weary Feet’ needs a crowd!” 

Bifur shouts something in Khuzdul, and then every Dwarf is up on his feet, stomping and clapping, alternately singing and shouting the silliest song Bilbo has ever heard about a Dwarfling who loses her footing in the mines and accidentally steps on the biggest emerald she’s ever seen. The fire crackles and whooshes upward to highlight the smiles on their faces, as if nature itself is pleased enough with their camaraderie to join in. 

And Bilbo can do nothing but sit on the ground, his bowl of food cooling quickly in his hands – he has never felt more alone. 

They are only a fortnight into their journey, he reminds himself, and no one knows him yet, while these Dwarves have likely known each other for longer than he’s been alive. Who is he to begrudge them their songs? _No one_. A simple Hobbit has no right to demand a song for himself, even when his own feet are sore from long walks to gather greens for supper, even when his thighs hurt from unfamiliar riding, even when this is the farthest he has ever been from home. 

Glóin receives a song the next night when he reveals that he’s been preoccupied due to concern for his dear wife and beloved son, and Bilbo has to swallow hard to keep his eyes from welling up. 

After he saves their skins (and their innards) from trolls, the Company crowds around him and squeezes him close between clusters of strong arms and hard chests – all except Thorin, who still looks too dazed to move. Bilbo can’t fault him for that. 

The next night, though he looks around in hope as his new friends settle in for their meal, there is still no song. He feels his face fall, and something inside him crumples as if stepped on, but he says nothing. There is nothing to fight over if they’ve begun to treat him with affection. 

If his eyes wander to Thorin Oakenshield as he shifts across the fire from him, he will say nothing as well. That sort of affection is much more than he deserves, and shameful to ask for. 

His heart jumps in his chest when Azog catches up to them and Thorin – brave, _stupid_ Thorin – makes his way proudly down to the Orc for a fight he inevitably wants to finish once and for all. _No_ , Bilbo mouths, lost in the noise of triumphant Orcish grunts as Thorin falls, and suddenly he finds himself sprinting on numb feet towards the Dwarf he is afraid to even think he loves. _No, no, no_ , and he leaps to protect Thorin, and slashes anything he can find with his useless little letter-opener of a sword: flesh and fur and open air. 

Thorin’s hard hug and husky whisper of how wrong he was warms him until he thinks his entire body is aflame, but…but – 

\- there is no song for him after, and now he thinks there never will be. 

Is he truly such an abhorrent thing that they begrudge him friendship and the songs that come so easily from their lips for any other companion? 

He gave his word and his heart to their quest, but the quiet, softly hurt place inside him hardens, bitter inside like a kernel. Perhaps it would be just as deadly if he prodded it. _There will be no songs for me_ , he vows, and leaves the kernel of pain alone. 

No one sings at the skinchanger’s home, or in the deep, dark Mirkwood, and in Laketown, the only songs are communal bursts of joy at the dinner table that even he knows. Thorin sits at his bedside as he recovers from his cold, with tea and a wet cloth for his face and all the handkerchiefs he needs. His Dwarf showers him with smiles, kisses to his forehead, and affectionate names both in Westron and in the Khuzdul that he’s learned expresses the deepest love. No song could compare. 

Certainly it is love that sustains Thorin at the first and final battle of Erebor’s reclamation, though he threatened to throw Bilbo from the ramparts as his blue eyes gleamed bright with tears that tore Bilbo up inside. It is love that makes Bilbo throw himself at Thorin in the healing tent that Óin and Tauriel have set up for the wounded Dwarves, Thorin and each nephew on the most comfortable pallets that the healers could devise on short notice. “My dearest Hobbit,” Thorin calls him, after he’s finished saying ‘oof,’ and Bilbo knows without a doubt that they are both forgiven. 

“I would sing for you here,” Thorin whispers into the back of his neck when they lie cuddled beneath a blanket that night. “Would you like that?” 

He should. Bilbo’s chest leaps with surprise and pleasure, but the next moment, his eyes fill with tears. Shocked, he turns his face into his rough pillow (Thorin’s cloak, still smelling of smoke and Dwarf) to hide it. _He would sing only here, not in front of everyone. What have I done? Have I even earned friendship from the Company?_

Despite his closed mouth and eyes, his best attempt to hide, Thorin curls around him and tightens his arms around Bilbo’s belly. “Bilbo?” A lump fills Bilbo’s throat and he shakes his head. “Bilbo, why are you weeping?” 

_I wish I had what everyone else had_. Stupid, selfish, and the words won’t leave his lips. Thorin will not hear this if he can help it after the injuries he’s sustained. He is far braver and kinder than any Baggins deserves. Bilbo shakes his head and quietly stifles a sob. 

But Thorin calls him _kurdel_ and sweetheart, and rocks him slowly, and Bilbo’s greatest desire leaves him one word at a time. Thorin stills when he’s finished. “Bilbo,” he says, “oh, Bilbo, you should have said something.” 

The kernel pierces him from inside at that. Bilbo wipes his face on his sleeve. “I…I didn’t want to have to ask.” 

Thorin kisses the tip of his ear. “Then you will not.” 

It is a clear, cold morning when Thorin emerges from the tent after he has healed enough to walk without buckling at the knees. “My betrothed deserves a song,” he says simply to the gathered Dwarves, Men, and even Elves, and begins a ballad in Khuzdul and Westron about a King and his consort, a song thousands of years old. 

The tears in Bilbo’s eyes are tears of joy this time, and he can feel the hidden pain dissolving after so many months of hurt. Yet as the kernel slips from him, it pokes him one last time with a thought that brings a pang. 

_What if he only sings before these people because I made him?_ No. He shakes his head and holds Thorin’s hand all the tighter, and smiles at his Dwarf when he is done.

**Author's Note:**

>  _Kurdel_ : 'heart of all hearts' in Khuzdul. 
> 
> I can be found at godihatethisfreakingcat on Tumblr (seashadows was taken :D).


End file.
